Grand Plans judged by expenditure. What gives?

roadhog

Does this phenomenon bother anybody else?.... Why is it that every time some grand new government plan or even aid package is announced it is almost always described in terms of expenditure... I contend this means very little at best to anyone really.

Example. Headlines today report that the U.S. in unveiling a 7.1 billion dollar plan to combat possibility of avian flu pandemic. Articles I have read give surprisingly few details beyond this. This seems to be the norm, especially with all the aid programs we have seen discussed following recent natural catastrophes... It's always about the money, not substance nor method.

First of all, I make little enough money (along with 99.9% of people) that those kinds of numbers are completely unfathomable to me. 7 billion, 1 billion. What's the difference, I have no idea what you can accomplish with either one. Am I supposed to be impressed by the number? Is that the point maybe? I could buy that argument except the press has no reason to impress me with the price tag. It's not their agenda they're selling.

Second, any government throughout history disbursing this much money on anything is so prone to at least some level of corruption that it's hard to tell what the "real" impact of any plan is - even if you must use a price tag to judge it.

I guess I have no other metric by which to describe plans as a solution, so I'm no help. I just get tired of seeing no substance behind headlines or publicly released plans.

Please, don't turn this into an anti-Bush or repub thing. I'm sure they are guilty of all kinds of sins relating to this as much as everyone else. Got it. We get enough of those conversations here. I'm just making a casual observation about all big agendas I see announced world-wide. Does anyone else get annoyed by this? Maybe it's just me.